8 ms·

You're focusing on how hard it will be to read but the central thrust is whether it is recoverable at all. Can't read what no longer exists, by any means. Pap

You're focusing on how hard it will be to read but the central thrust is whether it is recoverable at all. Can't read what no longer exists, by any means. Paper disintegrates without maintenance. Tape disintegrates. Hard drives lose magnetization. SSDs lose their charge states. Stone erodes. Several of these won't survive fire, water, magnetic fields, or radiation. Also, I don't see why you couldn't store digital data on this, for example as pits and lands, or base 64 text, or some other scheme, with error correction of your choice. (But if it's as durable as they say, it's not as necessary.) But, that requires additional effort to decode. I enjoy research into highly stable means of storing data. I think Microsoft Research was developing a technique of storing data in a 3D arrangement in glass. Very fascinating.

bastawhiz 3y ago
> Paper disintegrates without maintenance. Tape disintegrates. Hard drives lose magnetization. SSDs lose their charge states. Stone erodes. Several of these won't survive fire, water, magnetic fields, or radiation. Computers, peripherals, microscopes, and any other devices needed to access some incredibly durable archival format will also degrade. The information needed to produce new ones will need to be archived, and that material will degrade and need archiving. Do you know how much information is necessary to describe all of the details relevant to producing an extremely good microscope from scratch? It's not just the parts and materials, it's the entirety of the supply chain: the mining, refining, electronics, power production, and everything else. All of that information needs to be accessibly preserved. So it begs the question, is it really easier to make the prerequisite for the information's use be a working precision instrument or is it easier to just actively maintain lots of copies of less durable materials like books? If the sky falls tomorrow, how many years is some archive really useful for in any format? Most of a sturdy, well-designed library of books will probably survive for a decade. A good percentage will probably survive a century. On the other hand, a high precision microscope probably won't "just work" after a decade or two of sitting around disused in unideal conditions. A working power supply would probably last even less time. We must accept that there's some ongoing upkeep of an archive regardless of how durable its contents are. And while a book isn't as durable as some quartz or other fancy material, you can pretty easily make books to replace old ones even in pretty miserable conditions (we did it for centuries, albeit at great cost). There's a remarkably high cost to making sure there's a working microscope around, and keeping the information and resources necessary to make new ones and repair existing ones available.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  We've been able to manage to make very good microscopes for quite a while. It won't take much more than industrial revolution level tech for this to work
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    If you have industrial revolution tech, you can already maintain and mass produce libraries of books. Probably quite easily.
    - thewakalix 3y ago
      What about all the information that was lost in the meantime, because you weren't maintaining it then?
      - bastawhiz 3y ago
        The counterpoint is the same: what happens to all the nanofiche disks next to a pile of crushed microscopes that were destroyed when the roof fell in? In one case, the information which mattered to the people at the time persisted. In the other, no information persisted. The whole point is that the operation persists for longer than a human lifespan. If we have to rediscover 100 years of making lasers and rockets, who cares? If we have to rediscover 2000 years of agriculture and medicine, that's a problem.
- flir 3y ago
  I think it would be reasonable to store a fixed-focus compound microscope as part of your archive. That's basically a tube and a couple of lenses, and it gets you to 500x right off the bat. But if you want to be doubly sure, include instructions for making a hand lens at 1x, and instructions for making a microscope at 5x.
- Zababa 3y ago
  Maybe it would be possible to make the archive in "stages"? Like the first stage is readable without any equipment and describes how to make equipment to read the next stage. Repeat until you have a high-precision microscrope and can read the nanofiches. > We must accept that there's some ongoing upkeep of an archive regardless of how durable its contents are. That's a good point too. Archiving is a living process.
genewitch 3y ago
I love the "theory" that optical media, especially the golden DVDs will be readable in "100 years" or whatever hilariously optimistic length of time claimed. Sure, DVDs and even CDs i have carefully stored in a humidity controlled environment worked the last time i checked, there's always the risk that the next time i pull them out of storage they won't. I think blu-ray is claimed to be even longer than DVD for storage, and i guess it makes sense in theory, the QC/QM needed to pack 120GB on a 12cm disc must be wild. I have books on my bookshelf that are older than 100 years old. I don't think 100 years is even that much to ask, seeing as i know who William Shakesman and Chaucer are. I'm in a unique position, though - my music is on an SD card traveling in space right now, thanks to some attentive friends who petitioned to get me on there. Or so i'm told. How would i know, my spaceship is in the shop.
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  plastic media optical disks don’t last 100 years, but glass media optical disks do. They exist. My family’s small business used to sell, refurbish, and maintain big jukeboxes for 12 inch Write-Once, Read-Many glass optical disks (in these big minidisc-like cartridges) for customers like big banks that needed guaranteed 50 year archives.
  - genewitch 3y ago
    have you ever read a disk that was 50 years old?
    - Robotbeat 3y ago
      The tech isn’t yet 50 years old, although accelerated aging is a well-understood field and the margins are good for glass media. However, the tech is 30-40 years old and the early disks ARE still readable.
bccdee 3y ago
You're understating how long good-quality paper will last. Proper archival paper lasts hundreds of years without fading or discolouration—we have no idea what the upper limit on its lifetime is. And, in practice, it doesn't matter whether the storage medium can't be read because it's damaged or because the machine to read it doesn't exist anymore. Either you can read it or you can't.
- eviks 3y ago
  Of course it matters a great deal - you can build the machine again
  - bccdee 3y ago
    Not necessarily. You can't just build a high-powered microscope out of twigs and leaves. You need sophisticated manufacturing tools. Mineral resources. Where are we going to encode the knowledge of how to build or acquire these things, if already having them is a prerequisite for accessing any of our records? Either you can read it—i.e. it is intact and you have the means to access the information stored inside—or you can't.
    - eviks 3y ago
      > Where are we going to encode the knowledge of how to build or acquire these things, if already having them is a prerequisite for accessing any of our records? It's not a prerequisite, you can have a smaller batch of knowledge on how to build the tools to access all the knowledge in various other more accessible systems. Besides, you presuppose that just because there is no machine, there is also no knowledge re. how to build a machine and you only have twigs and leaves. That's a false universal assumption, you could just as well be in a situation where you don't have the machine, but you have tools and resources to build it. This is yet another difference to the "the medium is broken and can't be used" situation
SuperHeavy256 3y ago
"I think Microsoft Research was developing a technique of storing data in a 3D arrangement in glass. Very fascinating." a-la Superman ?

bastawhiz 3y ago

> Paper disintegrates without maintenance. Tape disintegrates. Hard drives lose magnetization. SSDs lose their charge states. Stone erodes. Several of these won't survive fire, water, magnetic fields, or radiation. Computers, peripherals, microscopes, and any other devices needed to access some incredibly durable archival format will also degrade. The information needed to produce new ones will need to be archived, and that material will degrade and need archiving. Do you know how much information is necessary to describe all of the details relevant to producing an extremely good microscope from scratch? It's not just the parts and materials, it's the entirety of the supply chain: the mining, refining, electronics, power production, and everything else. All of that information needs to be accessibly preserved. So it begs the question, is it really easier to make the prerequisite for the information's use be a working precision instrument or is it easier to just actively maintain lots of copies of less durable materials like books? If the sky falls tomorrow, how many years is some archive really useful for in any format? Most of a sturdy, well-designed library of books will probably survive for a decade. A good percentage will probably survive a century. On the other hand, a high precision microscope probably won't "just work" after a decade or two of sitting around disused in unideal conditions. A working power supply would probably last even less time. We must accept that there's some ongoing upkeep of an archive regardless of how durable its contents are. And while a book isn't as durable as some quartz or other fancy material, you can pretty easily make books to replace old ones even in pretty miserable conditions (we did it for centuries, albeit at great cost). There's a remarkably high cost to making sure there's a working microscope around, and keeping the information and resources necessary to make new ones and repair existing ones available.

idiotsecant 3y ago
We've been able to manage to make very good microscopes for quite a while. It won't take much more than industrial revolution level tech for this to work
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  If you have industrial revolution tech, you can already maintain and mass produce libraries of books. Probably quite easily.
  - thewakalix 3y ago
    What about all the information that was lost in the meantime, because you weren't maintaining it then?
    - bastawhiz 3y ago
      The counterpoint is the same: what happens to all the nanofiche disks next to a pile of crushed microscopes that were destroyed when the roof fell in? In one case, the information which mattered to the people at the time persisted. In the other, no information persisted. The whole point is that the operation persists for longer than a human lifespan. If we have to rediscover 100 years of making lasers and rockets, who cares? If we have to rediscover 2000 years of agriculture and medicine, that's a problem.
flir 3y ago
I think it would be reasonable to store a fixed-focus compound microscope as part of your archive. That's basically a tube and a couple of lenses, and it gets you to 500x right off the bat. But if you want to be doubly sure, include instructions for making a hand lens at 1x, and instructions for making a microscope at 5x.
Zababa 3y ago
Maybe it would be possible to make the archive in "stages"? Like the first stage is readable without any equipment and describes how to make equipment to read the next stage. Repeat until you have a high-precision microscrope and can read the nanofiches. > We must accept that there's some ongoing upkeep of an archive regardless of how durable its contents are. That's a good point too. Archiving is a living process.

genewitch 3y ago

I love the "theory" that optical media, especially the golden DVDs will be readable in "100 years" or whatever hilariously optimistic length of time claimed. Sure, DVDs and even CDs i have carefully stored in a humidity controlled environment worked the last time i checked, there's always the risk that the next time i pull them out of storage they won't. I think blu-ray is claimed to be even longer than DVD for storage, and i guess it makes sense in theory, the QC/QM needed to pack 120GB on a 12cm disc must be wild. I have books on my bookshelf that are older than 100 years old. I don't think 100 years is even that much to ask, seeing as i know who William Shakesman and Chaucer are. I'm in a unique position, though - my music is on an SD card traveling in space right now, thanks to some attentive friends who petitioned to get me on there. Or so i'm told. How would i know, my spaceship is in the shop.

Robotbeat 3y ago
plastic media optical disks don’t last 100 years, but glass media optical disks do. They exist. My family’s small business used to sell, refurbish, and maintain big jukeboxes for 12 inch Write-Once, Read-Many glass optical disks (in these big minidisc-like cartridges) for customers like big banks that needed guaranteed 50 year archives.
- genewitch 3y ago
  have you ever read a disk that was 50 years old?
  - Robotbeat 3y ago
    The tech isn’t yet 50 years old, although accelerated aging is a well-understood field and the margins are good for glass media. However, the tech is 30-40 years old and the early disks ARE still readable.

bccdee 3y ago

You're understating how long good-quality paper will last. Proper archival paper lasts hundreds of years without fading or discolouration—we have no idea what the upper limit on its lifetime is. And, in practice, it doesn't matter whether the storage medium can't be read because it's damaged or because the machine to read it doesn't exist anymore. Either you can read it or you can't.

eviks 3y ago
Of course it matters a great deal - you can build the machine again
- bccdee 3y ago
  Not necessarily. You can't just build a high-powered microscope out of twigs and leaves. You need sophisticated manufacturing tools. Mineral resources. Where are we going to encode the knowledge of how to build or acquire these things, if already having them is a prerequisite for accessing any of our records? Either you can read it—i.e. it is intact and you have the means to access the information stored inside—or you can't.
  - eviks 3y ago
    > Where are we going to encode the knowledge of how to build or acquire these things, if already having them is a prerequisite for accessing any of our records? It's not a prerequisite, you can have a smaller batch of knowledge on how to build the tools to access all the knowledge in various other more accessible systems. Besides, you presuppose that just because there is no machine, there is also no knowledge re. how to build a machine and you only have twigs and leaves. That's a false universal assumption, you could just as well be in a situation where you don't have the machine, but you have tools and resources to build it. This is yet another difference to the "the medium is broken and can't be used" situation

SuperHeavy256 3y ago

"I think Microsoft Research was developing a technique of storing data in a 3D arrangement in glass. Very fascinating." a-la Superman ?